Every time you purchase a lottery ticket, have you ever considered when is the best time to get a ticket that increases your chances of walking away with the top prize?

Less is MORE

EuroMillions draws take place on Tuesdays and Fridays. According to reports, the total estimated sales of lottery tickets, in the UK, for a Tuesday EuroMillions draw, at the base jackpot of £11 million, is 4.8 million tickets, with 7.5 million ticket holders for the Friday draw.

What this means is that the odds of one person scooping that grand prize is much higher on Tuesdays, because there are fewer ticket holders. More people may opt for the bigger draw making it more probable to have multiple winners in the first tier.

Power to YOU

A mathematical case has been made, which proves that some instances may be more favourable to play US Powerball than others.

When the jackpot grows the “expected value” grows with it.

For instance if 100 people are buying tickets at $1, for a jackpot that is $100 then any jackpot over $100 means that the “expected value” of the ticket is more than the $1 it cost. This means that, at a certain size, a lotto ticket could be valued more than what you paid for it.

Consider going SPLITSIES

While a record jackpot makes for a record win, most players don’t take into account that the increase in ticket holders, actually increases your chances of having to share the top prize.

Because the higher the jackpot, the more ticket holders it will command, the odds of a split change all the time. Luckily some very smart people drilled down into the math of this conundrum, looking specifically at the US Powerball.

Logically, the more tickets there are in play, the higher the possibility of there being more than one winner, and a split jackpot. That automatically, lowers the “expected value” of an individual lottery ticket.

But the truth is no-one plays the lottery for the expected value of an individual ticket. According to psychologists, people have a tendency to overestimate low-probability events, like winning the lottery, which in turn makes the perceived expected value of a ticket much higher than it actually is.

So, the trick is to be consistent. When you play a record-high lottery that grabs international media attention, be conscious of the fact that you may have to split your winnings. The best strategy would be to take your chances on as many lotteries as you can, especially one the ones still edging toward record-breaking status, like tonight’s US Powerball ($112 million) or the UK Lottery (£18.3 million) because there could only be one winner than that winner could be YOU!